Probability Moon
Encyclopedia
Probability Moon is a 2000 science fiction
novel
by Nancy Kress
.
The novel concerns a xenological expedition to the planet World, where aliens live who have developed a strange form of telepathy
or collective unconscious
, "shared reality
," which causes piercing "head-pain
" whenever "Worlders" attempt to hold strongly-differing opinions. Simultaneously, an artificial satellite is found in orbit of the planet which has uncharted powers, and may be the key to winning a war against a xenocidal
alien race, the "Fallers."
that has been colonized by humans. This was made possible by the space tunnels, a network of FTL
warp gates that were created by a now-lost progenitor race. Humanity is not united under a common government and political system. The Terrans have also discovered a number of alien races, most of them vastly similar in body format, living conditions and even DNA
, leading to the hypothesis that the aforementioned progenitor race seeded the galaxy with sentient life, which then evolved according to the conditions on each planet. Of the known alien races, humanity is the only one that has reached space.
Humanity's understanding of the space tunnels is very limited, but several peculiar traits have been discovered. For one: if Ship A enters Tunnel 1, exits Tunnel 2 and then turns around and enters Tunnel 2 again, it will emerge from Tunnel 1 again... Unless Ship B emerges from Tunnel 2 in the interim, at which point Ship A will instead emerge from wherever Ship B entered. (The single tunnel leading to World is #438.) For two, objects can only enter the Tunnel if they are below a certain mass, about 100,000 ton
s; anything larger will actually fit into the aperture, but will collapse and explode. The threshold of what the tunnel can handle is determined by the object's Schwarzschild radius
. Finally, nobody knows how the tunnels work. At all. Macro-level quantum entanglement
has been proposed, but it is so far out of the realm of current physics that nobody believes it.
The space tunnels also lead to the discovery of the Fallers, an alien race who refused to establish communications and immediately launched a war, which they are winning. No Faller has been captured alive—they prefer to suicide or kamikaze
—but forensic
examination of corpses indicate they evolved separately from humans, instead of being seeded by the progenitors. Like humanity, they were not an interstellar race until the discovery of a space tunnel in their system, though they have been closing the gap quickly. Unlike humans, they did not discover the tunnel independently; it was, in fact, a Terran craft emerging into their home system that catapulted them onto the interstellar stage.
The Probability novels shares two technological quirks with another of Nancy Kress' trilogies, the Beggars trilogy: in both stories, use of both genetic modification
and behavior-regulating neuropharmacological drugs is commonplace. "Genemods" are applied in vitro
, whereas those who adhere to the "Discipline" administer "neuropharms" daily to control their neurotransmitter
balances, in a mix that can be altered depending on the activities of one's day and the mood one hopes to approach it with.
ian) leads the team of diplomats who descend to the planet World. Also on his team are Dieter Gruber, a geologist
; Ann Sikorski, a xenobiologist
, and David Campbell Allen III, a graduate student in xenology. Their mission is to learn as much as possible about World, the Worlders and their culture, particularly the peculiar phenomenon of shared reality, which causes "head-pain" to those holding, or in the presence of someone holding, views contrary to the majority. This has had the drawback of limiting science, technology and progress; Worlders, though a far older species
than Terrans, are somewhere around the Renaissance
in terms of its technology. Bicycle
s are the cutting edge in personal transportation, each produced by artisan
s and individual craftsmen
. On the other hand, there has never been a war on World; even the average barroom brawl causes intense head-pain. World's religion focuses on flower
s; they believe that their people were created by the First Flower, which descended into the Neury Mountains, and much of their ceremony, both religious and every-day, involves blossoms. The sacredness of the mountains themselves is maintained by a wasting sickness
inflicted on any who enter it.
The Terran contingent was delivered by the Zeus
, a warship in the rather piecemeal Solar Alliance Defense Network. The diplomatic mission is merely a cover story for the military objective, which is headed by Colonel
Dr. Syree Johnson (ret.), a soldier and military physicist
. The true objective involves "Orbital Object #7," one of World's seven moon
s (known as "Tas" by the locals); it is in very low orbit, is clearly artificial, and was created by the same unknown progenitor race that created the space tunnels. Johnson's mission is to analyze Orbital Object #7, decipher its use, and figure out if it can be used as a weapon. Whether it can or not, it is about nine times too large to fit through the tunnel, and Johnson and her team can think of no way to safely disassemble it.
Orbital Object #7 has fourteen bumps on the outside, each labeled with a number of their own dots: one, two, three, five, seven, eleven
, thirteen. The ancient builders' love for prime numbers is well-known; the space tunnels are marked with primes as well. It is theorized that the bumps are activating studs, and manipulating both bumps of one integer (they are on opposite sides, to avoid accidental activation by, say, a passing meteor
) will trigger the artifact. When Orbital Object #7 is tested on setting one, it sends out a spherical wave that causes all nearby material higher than atomic number
75 (rhenium
) to go radioactive—not by irradiating them with energy, but by manipulating the heretofore-untouchable strong nuclear force. Johnson and her team are still deciding what to do when a Faller scout craft (a "skeeter") emerges from Space Tunnel 438. The Zeus attempts to engage using particle beam weapon
ry, specifically a directed proton
weapon, and are shocked when the beam passes through it instead of destroying it. (This has nothing to do with the strength of the weapon; proton beams utilize particles accelerated to a high percentage of the speed of light
. Were the skeeter to land a shot on the Zeus, she would be destroyed as thoroughly as if vice versa. The advantage of a larger ship like the Zeus is in higher-ranged weaponry: it attacks the skeeter hours before the Faller can counterattack.) Johnson comes up with a theory: the proton beam is subject to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and is simultaneously composed of waves and particles until it is "observed" by someone—specifically the ship it shoots—at which point it resolves into a stream of particles and destroys whatever has just observed it. Evidently, the Fallers have discovered a way to alter the beam's "phase complex" to prevent the beam from resolving; essentially, the skeeter chooses not to "observe" the proton beam and is thus unaffected by it. The skeeter, having thus proven that ignorance is bliss, performs a close fly-by of Orbital Object #7 and then departs.
On World, Bazargan struggles particularly with David Allen, who is entranced by the forced altruism
of shared reality and wishes to splice it into the human genome. He also liases with the head of a rich trading family, Hadjil Pek Voratur, who sees plenty of chances for profit
in the Terrans' advanced technology. He and his team, especially Pek Sikorski, are generally attended by Enli Pek Brimmidin, a household servant who picks up English with surprising speed. Enli, a point-of-view
character, is a spy in the employ of the "Reality and Atonement" branch of World's government; her task is to gather information that will shed light on the question of whether Terrans are "real"—that is, subject to shared reality. This is not an idle concern: those few Worlders who are born without the ability or cannot socialize to it are quietly euthanized. Enli herself has been declared unreal, having murder
ed her brother, and has been assigned this task as atonement. Bazargan and Ann Sikorski eventually strike a bargain with Voratur, trading the secrets of antihistamine
s (for Worlders, flower-sickness
is sacrilegious) for a chance to perform a "Lagerfeld" brain scan on him. They agree only after Voratur takes a dose of antihistamine himself (having commissioned Enli to steal it) and survives. One of the Worlders testing the first batch of home-made drug dies from it. The Lagerfeld scan is unable to pinpoint a specific place in the Worlder brain where shared reality nests, and Ann concludes that it did not evolve and is not genetic; David Allen refuses to believe this, and begins to suspect a conspiracy between Bazargan and the high priests of World.
Aboard the Zeus, Johnson and the other crew make the decision to push Orbital Object #7 out of orbit and towards Space Tunnel 438, in the hopes of breakthroughs during the five-day journey. She informs Bazargan of the action, including that, if necessary, they will destroy the artifact, possibly creating a destabilizing wave that could affect World. Bazargan goes to inform Voratur of this, only to have Voratur discover that Bazargan didn't know that his mission was a cover story. This is binding proof: Terrans do not share reality. Their lives thus endangered, the Terrans, along with Enli, flee to the Neury Mountains, where no one will (or can) follow them. They are protected by environmental suits from the radiation, but they are still subject to a bizarre phenomenon: a slowing-down of the brain, a neurological phenomenon that only Enli remains unaffected by. Deep in the mountains, Gruber discovers a second alien artifact, similar to the one found in space but much smaller (perhaps 25 meters in diameter). It appears to have crash-landed on the planet millions of years ago (precipitating a mass extinction) and is putting out prodigious amounts of radiation
. However, the radiation field is in the shape of a torus
(a doughnut
), and when the team moves into the "hole" of the field, Enli is not afflicted with the head-pains normally associated with unshared reality. Gruber theorizes that the field they passed through alters probability
; this allows it to have an effect on human brain tissue
because the release of neurotransmitter
s is a quantum-level event and thus susceptible to probability (indeed, nerve cells do not always release neurotransmitters, even when stimulated with exactly the same amount of voltage).
Speeding towards Space Tunnel 438, the Zeus is confronted by a Faller cruiser, and detaches from the artifact, which continues on at over 4,000 kilometers per second
. The engagement is largely inconclusive until Orbital Object #7 actually enters the tunnel. Just prior to this, Dr. Johnson receives a transmission from the diplomatic team containing Gruber's theories on the probability field, and realizes that this could explain the Fallers' new shield. However, her speculation is short-lived; when Orbital Object #7 enters the tunnel and is subsequently destroyed by it, it fires off a destabilizing wave at its maximum setting (revealed in the sequel Probability Sun
to have a range of about 6 billion kilometers, and to somehow be not susceptible to the inverse square law), which destroys the Zeus as well as all Faller craft, irradiates an outer planet in the World system, and then proceeds onward to World itself.
David Allen abducts Enli and drags her out of the mountains, passing through sections of high radiation to do so. Enli, wearing one of the team's four e-suits, is protected, but David takes thousands of rad
s. (Back with the team, Ann speculates that David is suffering from grandiose
paranoid schizophrenia). The two then descend back down to civilization, where they proclaim to be real and explain that a "sky sickness" is coming. David teaches Worlders the proper techniques to shelter against radiation, and, having proclaimed his reality by dying for the sake of others, convinces the Worlders that Terrans do share reality. Meanwhile, Bazargan, Dieter and Ann receive the final transmission from the Zeus (having traveled 54 light-minutes to reach them), only to discover that Dieter's artifact reacted to the destruction of Orbital Object #7 when it was destroyed, once again implying macro-level entanglement. World is ultimately unaffected by the destabilizing wave, for reasons that are not revealed until the sequel. Armed with new hypotheses, the team is retrieved by Terran forces a few days later.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Nancy Kress
Nancy Kress
Nancy Kress is an American science fiction writer. She began writing in 1976 but has achieved her greatest notice since the publication of her Hugo and Nebula-winning 1991 novella "Beggars in Spain" which was later expanded into a novel with the same title...
.
The novel concerns a xenological expedition to the planet World, where aliens live who have developed a strange form of telepathy
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
or collective unconscious
Collective unconscious
Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology, coined by Carl Jung. It is proposed to be a part of the unconscious mind, expressed in humanity and all life forms with nervous systems, and describes how the structure of the psyche autonomously organizes experience...
, "shared reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
," which causes piercing "head-pain
Headache
A headache or cephalalgia is pain anywhere in the region of the head or neck. It can be a symptom of a number of different conditions of the head and neck. The brain tissue itself is not sensitive to pain because it lacks pain receptors. Rather, the pain is caused by disturbance of the...
" whenever "Worlders" attempt to hold strongly-differing opinions. Simultaneously, an artificial satellite is found in orbit of the planet which has uncharted powers, and may be the key to winning a war against a xenocidal
Xenocide
Xenocide is the third novel in the Ender's Game series of books by Orson Scott Card. It was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Novel in 1992...
alien race, the "Fallers."
Setting
The Probability trilogy takes place in a galaxyGalaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
that has been colonized by humans. This was made possible by the space tunnels, a network of FTL
Faster-than-light
Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
warp gates that were created by a now-lost progenitor race. Humanity is not united under a common government and political system. The Terrans have also discovered a number of alien races, most of them vastly similar in body format, living conditions and even DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
, leading to the hypothesis that the aforementioned progenitor race seeded the galaxy with sentient life, which then evolved according to the conditions on each planet. Of the known alien races, humanity is the only one that has reached space.
Humanity's understanding of the space tunnels is very limited, but several peculiar traits have been discovered. For one: if Ship A enters Tunnel 1, exits Tunnel 2 and then turns around and enters Tunnel 2 again, it will emerge from Tunnel 1 again... Unless Ship B emerges from Tunnel 2 in the interim, at which point Ship A will instead emerge from wherever Ship B entered. (The single tunnel leading to World is #438.) For two, objects can only enter the Tunnel if they are below a certain mass, about 100,000 ton
Ton
The ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of weight, and as a unit of volume. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term.It is derived from...
s; anything larger will actually fit into the aperture, but will collapse and explode. The threshold of what the tunnel can handle is determined by the object's Schwarzschild radius
Schwarzschild radius
The Schwarzschild radius is the distance from the center of an object such that, if all the mass of the object were compressed within that sphere, the escape speed from the surface would equal the speed of light...
. Finally, nobody knows how the tunnels work. At all. Macro-level quantum entanglement
Quantum entanglement
Quantum entanglement occurs when electrons, molecules even as large as "buckyballs", photons, etc., interact physically and then become separated; the type of interaction is such that each resulting member of a pair is properly described by the same quantum mechanical description , which is...
has been proposed, but it is so far out of the realm of current physics that nobody believes it.
The space tunnels also lead to the discovery of the Fallers, an alien race who refused to establish communications and immediately launched a war, which they are winning. No Faller has been captured alive—they prefer to suicide or kamikaze
Kamikaze
The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....
—but forensic
Forensics
Forensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action...
examination of corpses indicate they evolved separately from humans, instead of being seeded by the progenitors. Like humanity, they were not an interstellar race until the discovery of a space tunnel in their system, though they have been closing the gap quickly. Unlike humans, they did not discover the tunnel independently; it was, in fact, a Terran craft emerging into their home system that catapulted them onto the interstellar stage.
The Probability novels shares two technological quirks with another of Nancy Kress' trilogies, the Beggars trilogy: in both stories, use of both genetic modification
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
and behavior-regulating neuropharmacological drugs is commonplace. "Genemods" are applied in vitro
In vitro
In vitro refers to studies in experimental biology that are conducted using components of an organism that have been isolated from their usual biological context in order to permit a more detailed or more convenient analysis than can be done with whole organisms. Colloquially, these experiments...
, whereas those who adhere to the "Discipline" administer "neuropharms" daily to control their neurotransmitter
Neurotransmitter
Neurotransmitters are endogenous chemicals that transmit signals from a neuron to a target cell across a synapse. Neurotransmitters are packaged into synaptic vesicles clustered beneath the membrane on the presynaptic side of a synapse, and are released into the synaptic cleft, where they bind to...
balances, in a mix that can be altered depending on the activities of one's day and the mood one hopes to approach it with.
Plot synopsis
Ahmed Bazargan (an IranIran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian) leads the team of diplomats who descend to the planet World. Also on his team are Dieter Gruber, a geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
; Ann Sikorski, a xenobiologist
Astrobiology
Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. This interdisciplinary field encompasses the search for habitable environments in our Solar System and habitable planets outside our Solar System, the search for evidence of prebiotic chemistry,...
, and David Campbell Allen III, a graduate student in xenology. Their mission is to learn as much as possible about World, the Worlders and their culture, particularly the peculiar phenomenon of shared reality, which causes "head-pain" to those holding, or in the presence of someone holding, views contrary to the majority. This has had the drawback of limiting science, technology and progress; Worlders, though a far older species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
than Terrans, are somewhere around the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
in terms of its technology. Bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
s are the cutting edge in personal transportation, each produced by artisan
Artisan
An artisan is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools...
s and individual craftsmen
Master craftsman
A master craftsman or master tradesman was a member of a guild. In the European guild system, only masters were allowed to be members of the guild....
. On the other hand, there has never been a war on World; even the average barroom brawl causes intense head-pain. World's religion focuses on flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s; they believe that their people were created by the First Flower, which descended into the Neury Mountains, and much of their ceremony, both religious and every-day, involves blossoms. The sacredness of the mountains themselves is maintained by a wasting sickness
Radiation Sickness
Radiation Sickness is a VHS by the thrash metal band Nuclear Assault. The video is a recording of a concert at the Hammersmith Odeon, London in 1988. It was released in 1991...
inflicted on any who enter it.
The Terran contingent was delivered by the Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
, a warship in the rather piecemeal Solar Alliance Defense Network. The diplomatic mission is merely a cover story for the military objective, which is headed by Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
Dr. Syree Johnson (ret.), a soldier and military physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
. The true objective involves "Orbital Object #7," one of World's seven moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
s (known as "Tas" by the locals); it is in very low orbit, is clearly artificial, and was created by the same unknown progenitor race that created the space tunnels. Johnson's mission is to analyze Orbital Object #7, decipher its use, and figure out if it can be used as a weapon. Whether it can or not, it is about nine times too large to fit through the tunnel, and Johnson and her team can think of no way to safely disassemble it.
Orbital Object #7 has fourteen bumps on the outside, each labeled with a number of their own dots: one, two, three, five, seven, eleven
Eleven
Eleven can refer to:*The year 11*The year 11 BC*11 *The month of November-Writing:*Eleven , a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn*Eleven, a 1970 collection of short stories by Patricia Highsmith...
, thirteen. The ancient builders' love for prime numbers is well-known; the space tunnels are marked with primes as well. It is theorized that the bumps are activating studs, and manipulating both bumps of one integer (they are on opposite sides, to avoid accidental activation by, say, a passing meteor
METEOR
METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...
) will trigger the artifact. When Orbital Object #7 is tested on setting one, it sends out a spherical wave that causes all nearby material higher than atomic number
Atomic number
In chemistry and physics, the atomic number is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom and therefore identical to the charge number of the nucleus. It is conventionally represented by the symbol Z. The atomic number uniquely identifies a chemical element...
75 (rhenium
Rhenium
Rhenium is a chemical element with the symbol Re and atomic number 75. It is a silvery-white, heavy, third-row transition metal in group 7 of the periodic table. With an average concentration of 1 part per billion , rhenium is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust. The free element has...
) to go radioactive—not by irradiating them with energy, but by manipulating the heretofore-untouchable strong nuclear force. Johnson and her team are still deciding what to do when a Faller scout craft (a "skeeter") emerges from Space Tunnel 438. The Zeus attempts to engage using particle beam weapon
Particle beam weapon
A particle beam weapon uses an ultra-high-energy beam of atoms or electrons to damage a material target by hitting it, and thus disrupting its atomic and molecular structure. A particle beam weapon is a type of directed-energy weapon, which directs energy in a particular direction by a means of...
ry, specifically a directed proton
Proton
The proton is a subatomic particle with the symbol or and a positive electric charge of 1 elementary charge. One or more protons are present in the nucleus of each atom, along with neutrons. The number of protons in each atom is its atomic number....
weapon, and are shocked when the beam passes through it instead of destroying it. (This has nothing to do with the strength of the weapon; proton beams utilize particles accelerated to a high percentage of the speed of light
Speed of light
The speed of light in vacuum, usually denoted by c, is a physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value is 299,792,458 metres per second, a figure that is exact since the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time...
. Were the skeeter to land a shot on the Zeus, she would be destroyed as thoroughly as if vice versa. The advantage of a larger ship like the Zeus is in higher-ranged weaponry: it attacks the skeeter hours before the Faller can counterattack.) Johnson comes up with a theory: the proton beam is subject to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and is simultaneously composed of waves and particles until it is "observed" by someone—specifically the ship it shoots—at which point it resolves into a stream of particles and destroys whatever has just observed it. Evidently, the Fallers have discovered a way to alter the beam's "phase complex" to prevent the beam from resolving; essentially, the skeeter chooses not to "observe" the proton beam and is thus unaffected by it. The skeeter, having thus proven that ignorance is bliss, performs a close fly-by of Orbital Object #7 and then departs.
On World, Bazargan struggles particularly with David Allen, who is entranced by the forced altruism
Altruism
Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism is the opposite of...
of shared reality and wishes to splice it into the human genome. He also liases with the head of a rich trading family, Hadjil Pek Voratur, who sees plenty of chances for profit
Profit (economics)
In economics, the term profit has two related but distinct meanings. Normal profit represents the total opportunity costs of a venture to an entrepreneur or investor, whilst economic profit In economics, the term profit has two related but distinct meanings. Normal profit represents the total...
in the Terrans' advanced technology. He and his team, especially Pek Sikorski, are generally attended by Enli Pek Brimmidin, a household servant who picks up English with surprising speed. Enli, a point-of-view
Point of view (literature)
The narrative mode is the set of methods the author of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical story uses to convey the plot to the audience. Narration, the process of presenting the narrative, occurs because of the narrative mode...
character, is a spy in the employ of the "Reality and Atonement" branch of World's government; her task is to gather information that will shed light on the question of whether Terrans are "real"—that is, subject to shared reality. This is not an idle concern: those few Worlders who are born without the ability or cannot socialize to it are quietly euthanized. Enli herself has been declared unreal, having murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ed her brother, and has been assigned this task as atonement. Bazargan and Ann Sikorski eventually strike a bargain with Voratur, trading the secrets of antihistamine
Antihistamine
An H1 antagonist is a histamine antagonist of the H1 receptor that serves to reduce or eliminate effects mediated by histamine, an endogenous chemical mediator released during allergic reactions...
s (for Worlders, flower-sickness
Allergy
An Allergy is a hypersensitivity disorder of the immune system. Allergic reactions occur when a person's immune system reacts to normally harmless substances in the environment. A substance that causes a reaction is called an allergen. These reactions are acquired, predictable, and rapid...
is sacrilegious) for a chance to perform a "Lagerfeld" brain scan on him. They agree only after Voratur takes a dose of antihistamine himself (having commissioned Enli to steal it) and survives. One of the Worlders testing the first batch of home-made drug dies from it. The Lagerfeld scan is unable to pinpoint a specific place in the Worlder brain where shared reality nests, and Ann concludes that it did not evolve and is not genetic; David Allen refuses to believe this, and begins to suspect a conspiracy between Bazargan and the high priests of World.
Aboard the Zeus, Johnson and the other crew make the decision to push Orbital Object #7 out of orbit and towards Space Tunnel 438, in the hopes of breakthroughs during the five-day journey. She informs Bazargan of the action, including that, if necessary, they will destroy the artifact, possibly creating a destabilizing wave that could affect World. Bazargan goes to inform Voratur of this, only to have Voratur discover that Bazargan didn't know that his mission was a cover story. This is binding proof: Terrans do not share reality. Their lives thus endangered, the Terrans, along with Enli, flee to the Neury Mountains, where no one will (or can) follow them. They are protected by environmental suits from the radiation, but they are still subject to a bizarre phenomenon: a slowing-down of the brain, a neurological phenomenon that only Enli remains unaffected by. Deep in the mountains, Gruber discovers a second alien artifact, similar to the one found in space but much smaller (perhaps 25 meters in diameter). It appears to have crash-landed on the planet millions of years ago (precipitating a mass extinction) and is putting out prodigious amounts of radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
. However, the radiation field is in the shape of a torus
Torus
In geometry, a torus is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three dimensional space about an axis coplanar with the circle...
(a doughnut
Doughnut
A doughnut or donut is a fried dough food and is popular in many countries and prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty outlets...
), and when the team moves into the "hole" of the field, Enli is not afflicted with the head-pains normally associated with unshared reality. Gruber theorizes that the field they passed through alters probability
Probability
Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...
; this allows it to have an effect on human brain tissue
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
because the release of neurotransmitter
Neurotransmitter
Neurotransmitters are endogenous chemicals that transmit signals from a neuron to a target cell across a synapse. Neurotransmitters are packaged into synaptic vesicles clustered beneath the membrane on the presynaptic side of a synapse, and are released into the synaptic cleft, where they bind to...
s is a quantum-level event and thus susceptible to probability (indeed, nerve cells do not always release neurotransmitters, even when stimulated with exactly the same amount of voltage).
Speeding towards Space Tunnel 438, the Zeus is confronted by a Faller cruiser, and detaches from the artifact, which continues on at over 4,000 kilometers per second
Second
The second is a unit of measurement of time, and is the International System of Units base unit of time. It may be measured using a clock....
. The engagement is largely inconclusive until Orbital Object #7 actually enters the tunnel. Just prior to this, Dr. Johnson receives a transmission from the diplomatic team containing Gruber's theories on the probability field, and realizes that this could explain the Fallers' new shield. However, her speculation is short-lived; when Orbital Object #7 enters the tunnel and is subsequently destroyed by it, it fires off a destabilizing wave at its maximum setting (revealed in the sequel Probability Sun
Probability Sun
Probability Sun is a 2001 science fiction novel by Nancy Kress, a sequel to her 2000 publication Probability Moon. It was followed in 2002 by Probability Space, which won the John W...
to have a range of about 6 billion kilometers, and to somehow be not susceptible to the inverse square law), which destroys the Zeus as well as all Faller craft, irradiates an outer planet in the World system, and then proceeds onward to World itself.
David Allen abducts Enli and drags her out of the mountains, passing through sections of high radiation to do so. Enli, wearing one of the team's four e-suits, is protected, but David takes thousands of rad
Rad (unit)
The rad is a unit of absorbed radiation dose. The rad was first proposed in 1918 as "that quantity of X rays which when absorbed will cause the destruction of the malignant mammalian cells in question..." It was defined in CGS units in 1953 as the dose causing 100 ergs of energy to be absorbed by...
s. (Back with the team, Ann speculates that David is suffering from grandiose
Grandiosity
Grandiosity is chiefly associated with narcissistic personality disorder, but also commonly features in manic or hypomanic episodes of bipolar disorder....
paranoid schizophrenia). The two then descend back down to civilization, where they proclaim to be real and explain that a "sky sickness" is coming. David teaches Worlders the proper techniques to shelter against radiation, and, having proclaimed his reality by dying for the sake of others, convinces the Worlders that Terrans do share reality. Meanwhile, Bazargan, Dieter and Ann receive the final transmission from the Zeus (having traveled 54 light-minutes to reach them), only to discover that Dieter's artifact reacted to the destruction of Orbital Object #7 when it was destroyed, once again implying macro-level entanglement. World is ultimately unaffected by the destabilizing wave, for reasons that are not revealed until the sequel. Armed with new hypotheses, the team is retrieved by Terran forces a few days later.